Tom Selleck Wants to Work With ‘Yellowstone’ Creator Taylor Sheridan
Tom Selleck is ready for his cowboy era.
The Blue Bloods star is hanging up his badge after playing NYPD Commissioner Frank Reagan for 14 seasons. (The series finale airs Dec. 13 on CBS.) But the 79-year-old actor has no intention of retiring. He’s looking forward to taking on more acting roles, and there’s one person in particular with whom he’s interested in working.
After ‘Blue Bloods,’ Tom Selleck wants to do a Western
Selleck recently chatted with Parade about the end of Blue Bloods and what’s next for him. The Magnum P.I. star said he didn’t have any new projects on the horizon, joking that he’s “unemployed.”
“I wouldn’t say [offers] are pouring in, but maybe some people are thinking of me,” he said.
One person Selleck wouldn’t mind hearing from? Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan, especially if he’s casting another Western.
“A good Western’s always on my list,” Selleck said. “I miss that; I want to sit on a horse again.”
In addition to eyeing a role in a Western, Selleck has also talked about reviving the Jesse Stone character. He played the detective in a series of TV movies between 2005 and 2015.
Tom Selleck starred in ‘Quigley Down Under’
Selleck has saddled up for acting roles in the past. His best-known Western is 1990’s Quigley Down Under, where he played an American sharpshooter who takes a job in Australia. When he arrives Down Under, he’s horrified to discover that his rancher boss (Alan Rickman) wants him to kill Aboriginal Australians.
Selleck was initially hesitant to take the part of Matthew Quigley.
“It was this bigger-than-life, iconic character, the kind of role you would want to cast John Wayne in,” he told Cowboys & Indians in 2020. “I’m 6-4, but so what? In the back of my head, I still feel like I’m 17 years old, even now. It seemed like a lot to bite off.”
Selleck also played a cowboy in the 2003 TV movie Monte Walsh. In 1997, he played a Confederate veteran fighting to reclaim his Arizona homestead from carpetbaggers in Last Stand at Sabre River. His other Westerns include the TV movies Crossfire Trail (2001) and The Shadow Riders (1982) and the miniseries The Sacketts (1979).
The Emmy-winner also nearly appeared in the hit 1989 miniseries Lonesome Dove. The adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s novel helped revive the TV western and featured a star-studded cast that included Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Anjelica Huston, Diane Lane, and Danny Glover. Director Simon Wincer wanted Selleck to play Jake Spoon, a former Texas Ranger. But his Magnum P.I. schedule meant he had to pass on the part.
“Simon asked me to do it, but I didn’t have a lot of availability because I was in every shot on Magnum, Selleck explained. “It was a role my dear friend Robert Urich wound up playing. But since then every hiatus from Magnum I thought, I gotta find a Western.”
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